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    This weekend Archived Message

    Posted by Jase on 1/7/2012, 6:03 pm

    Did anyone get out this weekend? Did you guys find the same problem we had, and everyone we met along the way?

    We started the day at 5:30am, with lines in the water at 7:40am. We had a spin in the channel at Mangonui for half an hour with one hit and no hook up between us. We saw one kahawai jump in that time. We moved on to the wharf to have a look there and 3 other fishos had nothing. No bites. Not even any bait fish around. For this wharf that is odd.

    We then went up to Karikari and did a bit of a recon before arriving at another spot. When we got out of the truck we could hear a loud hissing noise, and you guessed it, my rear left tyre was deflating, so we emptied the truck to get the jack and changed the tyre, then proceeded to try a spot. It looked okay, although not fantastic. It lacked any decent footing, the rocks were sharp and space was limited. The water was deep, even at low tide and absolutely crystal clear. The problem was where we wanted to reach had a 1.5m swell pumping and 15-20 knot bitterly cold wind right in our faces.



    We unloaded an 8kg sack of berley into that bay and all we could attract were piper and small kahawai. There was plenty of kelp, big rocks, oysters....and a freaking huge freight train that was easily 1.5m across and probably 100kg. This thing was a true monster and he hung around for 2 hours harassing us.





    We decided to head out of there an hour and half before high since nothing was happening. We got choked in at one spot and had to wade knee deep to get out. Had we waited until high we would have been stuck there until after dark, and the water was already bloody cold.

    Our next spot was a beach. It had a closed bay with structure either side and a weed bed 100m to our left. Just after we got there we watched a monster of a stingray, bigger than the one above just cruise through the shallows as it went past without a care in the world. Even an orca would struggle with this big boy.

    We set up and sat there into the night until 8pm for 2 little kahawai. We met 6 other fishermen on the beach and all reported not one single fish. Four of them even said not even a bite. We were experiencing pretty much the same thing everywhere we went. We did get some more ideas of places to try next time though.

    We ended the night on the way back with a look on Mangonui Wharf again, under the lights. Its a good spot for kingis, JD's and snapper in the right conditions, but it also has a mean current. There was 3 other fishermen there that reported nothing but a ray, an octopus and a conger for the entire evening. Once again, they reported no bait fish, despite using berley. Usually this place is teeming with yellowtail. By this time it had been dark for 4 hours. At 10:30pm we decided to head home, and after dropping Stuart home I managed to drag myself in the door at 11:55pm. It was a long day with not much to report fish wise, but we met some really cool people and had a few laughs along the way.

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